Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Book chronicles Idaho's rural airstrips

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (AP) — Twin Falls pilot Steve Mulberry flipped through an Idaho author's thick new book on backcountry aviation, pausing at a 1970 photo from a mountain airstrip.

"This is the Twin Otter I used to fly in Alaska — I can't believe it," said Mulberry, 59, who reported for his job as an Alaskan bush pilot three days after his Boise State University graduation in 1975.

In the 557-page hardcover "Bound for the Backcountry: A History of Idaho's Remote Airstrips," those moments of recognition might be plentiful for any pilot with experience in the Idaho backcountry. Written by Richard H. Holm Jr. of Boise and McCall, the book chronicles the personalities and aircraft important to nearly a hundred of Idaho's isolated airstrips.

"Almost with every picture I recognize something — it brings back a memory," Mulberry said, spotting pilots' names and aircraft models as he scanned the pages. "This is a real great history; I don't think you'll ever find a history like this."

These days Mulberry flies a 747 for United Airlines, and photos of Idaho wilderness share space on his cell phone with his cockpit photography of Siberia's snow-crusted peaks. He'd returned from Hong Kong two days earlier and would head for Sydney, Australia, next.

But Mulberry still owns a Cessna 185, a model suited to the heavy loads and short takeoffs and landings of Idaho mountain flying. He takes his sons airplane camping every summer — in 2012, for instance, at the remote Warm Springs airstrip on the South Fork of the Payette River. He flies war veterans into the backcountry for Wounded Warrior programs, and he donates plane time to search for lost snowmobiles, lost hunters and missing aircraft.

Read more here:  http://www.idahopress.com

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